


Shine

by Ghostmonument



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, No seriously this might be the least angsty thing I've ever written, SPACE GIRLFRIENDS, This isn't explicitly romantic it's just like, Winter, Yearning, alternate title: in which yaz embodies every wlw in this fandom, but no spoilers, i guess, it's Soft™, post-Revolution of the Daleks, thasmin, tw: i edited this in comic sans, ur doing amazing sweetie, wyd, yes it was hard thank u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28639623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostmonument/pseuds/Ghostmonument
Summary: The Doctor takes Yaz to a winter light show, neglecting to mention that it's at the top of a mountain. They're soft and gay. Send tweet
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 56
Collections: Thirsting for Thirteen Server Secret Santa 2020





	Shine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoctorCucumber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorCucumber/gifts).



Evening descended slowly on the winter landscape, as inexorable as the tide and twice as cold. The thin light of twin suns cast golden spears through the trees, illuminating snowy boughs and casting others into stark, inky shadow, a final burst of glory heralding the advent of night. A peaceful sort of quiet threaded sinuously through the sharp air, that quiet unique to winter, the muted, muffled impressions of things that were more felt than heard. It was peaceful, but that wasn’t the same thing as safe.

And Yaz… Yaz really should have known better.

One did not simply make _assumptions_ , when traveling with the Doctor. Especially if assumptions centered around such petty concerns like, oh, the likelihood of contracting hypothermia, for example. Yaz _knew_ that. And yet, here she was, slogging through an alien forest and unable to feel a concerning number of toes.

“Doctor,” Yaz puffed, struggling to keep up with her friend through the ankle-deep snow. “When you said a light show, I thought you meant something a bit more…” she broke off, searching for the right word to use that might correctly illustrate her current sense of betrayal. The Doctor had glanced over her shoulder as Yaz broke the silence and stopped, letting Yaz catch up. She wasn’t breathing hard at all, Yaz noted sourly. Where did she get her energy?

“A bit more what?” The Doctor asked curiously, nose slightly wrinkled as she took in Yaz’s red cheeks and puffing breaths and, possibly, murderous expression. “You don’t even know what it is yet, Yaz!”

“I know that it’s _outside,_ ” Yaz answered, pushing some stray hair out of her eyes with a gloved hand.

“No you don’t,” the Doctor countered, lifting her arms and gesturing about her, encompassing the, as far as Yaz could tell, utterly undeveloped and empty wilderness around them.

“Is it?”

The Doctor pursed her lips. “Well…”

“Uh-huh,” Yaz said, shaking her head. “That’s what I thought.”

“Oi, alright,” the Doctor said, with enough indignation that Yaz grinned as they both began walking again. “It might have been inside! For all we know there’s an entire city out here.” She caught Yaz’s look. “There could be,” she repeated, stubbornly, and Yaz shook her head but didn’t push the point. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to spare.

They both fell silent, taking in the wildness (and its distinct lack of any visible signs of civilization). It looked to Yaz’s eyes like most forests — loads of things easily identifiable as trees, stretching out into the gloom. They looked mostly like pine trees, with pleasing conical shapes and tufts of needles. They were even green, but it was a very pale green, almost silver. They glittered sometimes, too, when they caught the fading light of the two suns, quick flashes out of the corner of Yaz’s eyes that were gone by the time she turned her head to look.

Snow began to fall as they walked, lazy white flakes that piled up with deceptive swiftness. Yaz shivered, tucking her hands into her jacket pocket. She supposed she should be grateful that the Doctor had warned her at all (and that her warning had been accurate to the situation — the Doctor’s plans didn’t often last past first brush with reality). Yaz had at least been able to dress herself properly for a winter landscape. Which was all well and good, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.She watched her breath puff out a white plume in front of her face as she struggled through the deepening snow.

“Don’t like winter?”

Yaz startled out of her thoughts, looking guiltily up to meet the Doctor’s gaze — she’d been making an effort to walk next to Yaz, instead of plowing ahead like an enthusiastic blonde snowplow. Her voice was light, tone teasing, a smile touching the corner of her lips. But Yaz knew her friend… well, okay, not all that well, actually. But a lot better than she had; she was getting pretty good at parsing the Doctor’s expressions, scrunches, and general mannerisms. So Yaz knew, as the Doctor swung her arms as she walked, jaunty and as if without a care in the world, she _knew_ that the woman (alien? Time lord? Friend, yes, _friend_ ,) was worried, deep in those hazel eyes. Knew that beneath the casual veneer, she actually did care, very much, if Yaz was enjoying the trip.

“I like aspects of it,” Yaz said, and it was mostly the truth. Aspects like getting out of it, getting warm again, knowing that even in the deepest of winters, summer lurked beneath, not gone but sleeping, ready to wake. She didn’t say any of that though, of course. The Doctor had been very excited to take her here, had said it was one of her favorites. It was very beautiful, Yaz could admit that, and she said as much. The Doctor relaxed a little bit, beaming, and a new warmth suffused Yaz even as the wind knifed through her coat.

“You like the cold, then?” Yaz asked, mostly to distract herself, and the Doctor made a considering sound.

“Oh, yeah, suppose so,” she said, tilting her face up and eying the clouds, smiling as the snow fell on her upturned face. Yaz wondered how much she actually felt the cold, or heat — she seemed to have a much greater tolerance than her human companions, shrugging off conditions that had the rest of them decimated. Which was distinctly unfair, considering the situations she got them all embroiled in. Yaz watched, hunching her neck deeper in the fuzzy collar of her oversized coat, as the Doctor took a quick step over a partially buried log, her coat shifting to reveal a flash of bare leg. Yaz shivered just to look at that exposed flesh, but the Doctor splashed merrily through the slush without any apparent thought for it, head turning as if on a swivel as she took in the surroundings.

“How much farther?” Yaz couldn’t help asking, trying without much success to pitch her voice into the realm of merely curious, and not utterly miserable. Which she wasn’t. She wasn’t! Telling herself helped. Maybe. It was just that the trail had gone from merely snowy, to uphill and snowy, and Yaz was no mountaineer even on the best of days.

“Not much,” the Doctor answered, which wasn’t all that helpful, and Yaz should have known better. Every measure was taken on the Doctor’s personal, incomprehensible, and utterly unreliable scale and it only rarely overlapped with her human friend’s. “It’ll be worth it,” she added encouragingly, and Yaz tried to believe her and not focus instead on the cloud of exhaled air that, she felt, somewhat undercut the Doctor’s words. The Doctor evidently caught her expression, because she smiled bracingly. “Chin up, Yaz!”

“No thank you,” Yaz grumbled, immediately tucking her chin deeper into her coat collar. She hadn’t intended for the Doctor to hear the words, but the Time Lord had exceptional (if selective) hearing, and she swung around, mouth open in indignation, but then paused.

“Cold?” she asked, sounding surprised, and Yaz stared at her balefully from the depths of her coat collar.

“Oh, no, I’m only knee-deep in alien snow in an alien forest with the daylight fading fast,” Yaz said. “I’m downright toasty. Fancy a swim, actually. Do you think there are any lakes around? Maybe a glacier pool?” The Doctor’s nose had wrinkled as Yaz spoke, and she put her hands on her hips, coat swishing against her legs.

“There’s really no need for cheek, you know,” she said, with dignity. She moved closer to Yaz, hands lifting up to her own collar and unwinding her signature rainbow scarf, which had been her only concession to the weather.“You could have just told me you were cold,” she added, stopping close enough that the edges of her coat brushed Yaz’s legs.

The Doctor tilted her head, considering Yaz for a moment, those bright eyes doing as much to keep Yaz rooted in place as the drifts of snow were. Then the Doctor draped the scarf around Yaz’s neck, winding it once. “Good?” she asked, tucking the edges and patting the fabric, making sure it sat flush with Yaz’s neck.

“I — uh —“ Yaz managed, her breath catching in her throat for reasons that surely had something to do with the onset of hypothermia, and not the Doctor standing so close that heat was building between them, her hands still lingering on Yaz’s collar, and those eyes (god, those eyes) still flickering rapidly over Yaz’s face.

Yaz swallowed hard, tried again. “Yeah,” she managed, with succinct and brilliant eloquence. She _was_ warmer, she realized dimly, but she had a nasty suspicion that it didn’t have so much to do with the scarf, given how it centered somewhat lower than her face. Well, no, that was actually warming too. Oh, gods She was hopeless, absolutely hopeless. “Thanks,” she added, belatedly, heart lurching as the Doctor’s entire face lit up into a pleased smile.

“Can’t have an adventure with a frozen Yaz,” the Doctor said matter of factly, smoothing the scarf one last time before her hands slid, regrettably, away, back to her own sides. Yaz would have ordinarily been tempted to remind the Doctor that well no, actually, they’d had many adventures in which Yaz had been cold, wet, underdressed for the weather, or otherwise “frozen”, but her eyes had followed the Doctor’s hands, lingering on them in a way she suddenly realized was highly unnecessary. Yaz jerked her gaze up quickly, the scarf soft as it rustled against her face. She inhaled surreptitiously as they began walking again; it smelled like the Doctor, and the TARDIS, and Yaz made a soft, pleased sound. The Doctor glanced at her.

“Better now?” she asked, and Yaz nodded, relishing the fabric piled around her face.

“Loads,” she said, but as much as she was enjoying it, guilt compelled her to add, “are you sure you won’t be too cold without it?” She was still in her normal trousers, after all, legs bare and pale against the snow.

The Doctor flapped a careless hand that Yaz carefully avoided looking at. “Oh, I’m fine. I only wear it because it quite suits me,” she said, shoving her hands back in her trouser pockets as she kicked cheerfully at some snow. “We Time Lords aren’t half so fragile as you humans.”

She then spent the next several minutes expounding grandly on the deficits of humans and other humanlike creatures, and the myriad of ways they were unsuited for their various environments and how they compensated for these failings. Yaz considered reminding the Doctor that this environment was most certainly not a human one, and that it hand’t been her choice to be dumped in it, but the Doctor had really hit her stride, and Yaz wasn’t sure she would even be able to get in an interjection. Also, she privately enjoyed the rise and fall of the Doctor’s voice, that familiar, lively cadence guiding Yaz through an alien landscape like it had so many times before. She knew she’d follow that voice (those hands, those eyes, _her_ ) into anything. So Yaz walked, and listened, and smiled behind her scarf.

The smile faded, though, as they began to climb again in earnest, and by the time they crested the hill, opening up into a small clearing, Yaz was struggling for breath again. She was warmer, at least; slogging up a small mountain in shin-deep snow would do that, she supposed, as she staggered to a halt next to the Doctor.

“ _Please_ tell me we’re almost there,” Yaz panted.

“Sorry, no can do,” the Doctor said, and Yaz closed her eyes, despairing, as her heart plummeted. “Because we _are_ here,” the Doctor added, and Yaz’s eyes flew open. The Doctor was watching her closely with an absolutely infuriating smile, and Yaz exhaled a sharp breath.

“You are terrible,” she said, jabbing an accusatory finger. “Absolutely terrible.” The Doctor beamed in response, then grabbed her elbow, tugging Yaz closer to the overlook while Yaz’s mind flashed blank, her awareness narrowing to nothing but the blazing brand of five fingers wrapped around her arm. She was suddenly and absolutely alert again, exhaustion forgotten.

“You won’t think I’m terrible once you see this,” the Doctor said, scanning the dark sky with bright intensity and not immediately dropping her grip on Yaz’s arm.

“Once I see what —“ Yaz started, but the Doctor shushed her, as if _she_ hadn’t been the one talking half a second ago. Yaz rolled her eyes, and huddled closer, the Doctor’s warmth welcome. _Very_ welcome. ( _Not now,_ Yaz told herself sternly. Her self made a rude sound in return.) So Yaz and the Doctor stood in the clearing and stared at the inky sky. It was overcast; Yaz couldn’t even see any stars. But the Doctor didn’t seem discouraged or worried, so Yaz waited.

“Ah,” the Doctor breathed suddenly. Yaz’s heart lurched again, at that soft exhalation, and she had to remind herself to keep it together.

“Resonate frequency,” the Doctor said, voice still soft. Yaz blinked. She didn’t see anything. Was that supposed to make sense to her?

“Huh? Doctor, what —“

“Shh,” the Doctor said, maddeningly. “Look, it should be visible to you just about… now.” Yaz opened her mouth to ask what, exactly, should be visible, but the words never left her. The Doctor’s hand squeezed her elbow in acknowledgment (she still hadn’t released her grip, something that was both unlike her and that Yaz was enjoying very much).

“Oh,” Yaz managed, finally. The Doctor squeezed her arm again, and they both stood and stared out at the night, which had suddenly lit up with what looked like thousands of twinkling lights. It was as if the very air were suddenly filled with fairy lights, stretching into the cosmos. Yaz blinked slowly, feeling the lights reflected in her eyes. It reminded her of those quiet times on the TARDIS, when they were drifting slowly thorough space, no destination, no goal, just her, and the Doctor, and the stars spread out around them, their legs dangling over the void as they sat and watched the universe unfold for them.

“What are they?” Yaz said, finally, her voice hushed.

“Ice,” the Doctor murmured. Yaz blinked.

“Really?”

“Well, sort of,” the Doctor said, and Yaz looked at her. She could see the lights reflected too in the Doctor’s unfathomable gaze, glittering like so many stars. The Doctor turned her face to Yaz, and the shadows slid over her as she moved, alternately hiding and reveling the planes of her features, but the stars… they remained, glowing in those dark eyes that were such ancient wells of history.Yaz realized, distantly, that she was having trouble drawing in breath.

“They’re water crystals,” the Doctor continued, utterly unaware of the way the universe was speaking through her eyes, of the way that Yaz wouldn’t have been able to look away from her if she had wanted to (and oh, she did not want to). “Most of the time, they fall as normal precipitation, but when the humidity and temperature and weather come together just so,” she turned away again, gestured with an arm. “You get this. Resonate frequency.” She was smiling, that content, proud smile she got when she knew she’d gotten something right, hadn’t let anyone down. When she was at peace with herself. It made Yaz’s heart hurt, for some reason.

“But why do they… shine? And not fall?” Yaz asked, and if her voice was rougher than normal, the Doctor didn’t seem to notice. That didn’t mean that she _didn’t_ notice, of course. Yaz knew better than to assume, these days, about what the Doctor was and was not aware of.

“The molecular structure of this planet’s liquid reacts just so with their atmosphere,” the Doctor said. “The gravity isn’t the same, here, and the resonance between the water and the atmosphere can, rarely, reach this stasis. As the water freezes and vibrates, it catches the light and shines,” the Doctor said. “I was on a different planet once, that had this fog you wouldn’t believe. Fish swam in it, Yaz. Fish in fog! And with the right vocal frequency, the fog could be tamed.” She fell silent, those impossible eyes going distant as she remembered. Yaz wondered when that had been, how long ago. Who the Doctor had been, who she had been with. She wondered too if she was imagining the melancholy tinge seeping up through the Doctor’s words. It was hard, with her face in such sharp shadow and her eyes a starfield turned to the past. 

She shifted suddenly, catching Yaz watching her and making Yaz’s heart lurch painfully. “Do you like it?” The Doctor asked, earnestly, a hopeful smile in her words, on her face. _Worried_ , Yaz realized. Her heart lurched again.

“Yes,” she answered, feeling it as a physical warmth when the Doctor’s earnest expression melted into a huge smile. “Yes, I love it. It’s amazing. It’s — it’s perfect.”

“Worth the hike?”

Yaz shot the Doctor a narrow look, but she couldn’t help her own smile as she realized the Doctor was teasing her.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” The Doctor repeated, indignant. A piece of hair fell in front of her face, partially concealing one of those impossible eyes. Some of that ancient mystery receded from her, as she pushed the hair from her face. She caught Yaz’s grin, and scrunched her nose, and she was suddenly just the Doctor again, standing next to Yaz. “I’ll take it,” she said, long-suffering.

“I suppose you’ll have to,” Yaz said, gravely, and was rewarded with another scrunchy look before the Doctor turned, looking back out at the lights. Or ice. Or whatever they were, exactly. Yaz had quite forgotten, because the Doctor’s shoulder was pressed against her own ever so lightly, their elbows brushing, and nothing else seemed to matter beyond the warmth of her impossible friend against her side and the impossible lights dancing in both their eyes.

For a while it was just that, just them, and the lights, and the empty night stretching before them. Yaz could imagine that they were the only people in this world, in this forest, in this winter night that stretched indefinitely ahead of them. The half-realized thought burned steadily in her, a fire kindled in her chest.

Fire or no, though, it did little to warm Yaz’s nose, or fingers, or feet, or really any other part of her exposed to the very real winter’s night. She didn’t complain, though. How could she? How _could_ she? No, she kept silent. She couldn’t stop the shivering, though, when it came. She hadn’t even noticed the light tremors until the Doctor turned to look at her, her face dangerously close to Yaz’s own, snow-dusted blonde hair brushing against Yaz’s shoulder, against the loaned scarf.

“You’re still cold?” the Doctor asked, and Yaz tried to remember how to speak.

“A bit,” she said, finally, her voice a croak. “It’s okay,” she added, not wanting to ruin this, this crystalline moment that stretched so perfectly unblemished before them. She could live in it, she thought, live in this memory indefinitely. Was that how the Doctor felt? How she lived? Yaz wondered. The Doctor’s muttering interrupted her heavy, uncertain thoughts, and Yaz blinked as she realized the Doctor was rummaging in her coat’s pockets.

“I think I left it in here somewhere,” the Doctor was murmuring. “No… no… oh, I wondered where that’d got to… ah!” She pulled out a small cylinder, something smooth and rounded that caught the light on a brushed metal surface that looked like —

“Is that a flask?” Yaz asked, shocked, watching the Doctor shake the canister by her ear and then smile in evident satisfaction.

“Of course,” the Doctor answered, rendering Yaz temporarily lost for words. “I always keep some hot cocoa on hand. Comes in handy in a pinch.” She unscrewed the top, offering the flask towards Yaz. _Hot cocoa_ , Yaz thought, taking the flask. Of course. It was utterly ridiculous and completely on brand. And very welcome — she sipped gingerly at first (you never knew, with the Doctor), then with more enthusiasm as the warmth blossomed through her, spreading from her throat all the way to her fingers and toes in a rush. She passed it back to the Doctor, who took an absent swig as she looked back out at the ice lights. Yaz very carefully avoided thinking about the Doctor’s lips on the flask as she accepted it back. She tried, anyways.

“So will there be any fish?” Yaz asked, eventually. She felt the Doctor’s gaze on her.

“Fish?”

“Like on that other planet,” Yaz said. “In the fog.” The Doctor made a sound of understanding and laughed softly.

“No,” she said, then cocked her head. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe! I don’t think so but you never know. Anything could be out there, just waiting to be found. Who knows what we’ll discover, you and me?” Yaz nodded, letting the lights like so many stars fill her eyes while the Doctor’s voice (also, somehow, like so many stars) filled her mind. Filled her heart.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Yaz said, softly. Lights still filled her eyes, and warmth her heart, but she what looked at was the dark silhouette of the Doctor next to her, one foot resting slightly in front of the other as if ready to leap into action, and head tilted up, always, to the infinite horizon. To the next adventure.

Then she looked over at Yaz. Their eyes met, and the moment (the night, the universe itself) stretched out between them, crystalline with promise and choices and words unsaid. The Doctor smiled, and Yaz mirrored that, too, a warmth that had nothing to do with the hot cocoa or scarf washing over her.

“Me, too,” the Doctor said, and if the words were an end to that infinite crystal moment, they were a beginning to another. To many, hopefully.

They turned back to the twinkling lights together, shoulders brushing. And when Yaz leaned her head ever so lightly on the Doctor’s shoulder, she didn’t pull away, but stood there so soft and wam and impossible, while the lights shone for them and the night watched over them.

Yaz, and the Doctor, and the whole universe waiting for them.

But, Yaz thought, feeling the Doctor’s hair brush her face as she took in a breath, the universe could wait a bit longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Secret Santa fic for my dear friend (and hopeless Thasmin stan) LA. You deserve all the soft fluffy thasmin fics in the world, and anything else that you ever want. I'm so glad you're my friend and I hope you love this fic even a fraction as much as I love you. Merry Christmas (and happy birthday jdfhjshfshjsfhj)


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